


Childhood Living

by Ladycat



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Episode: s03e08 McKay and Mrs. Miller, Episode: s04e09 Miller's Crossing, Hurt/Comfort, Kid Fic, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-11
Updated: 2014-02-11
Packaged: 2018-01-12 00:20:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,643
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1179664
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ladycat/pseuds/Ladycat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>But John didn’t want to blame it on anything, not this time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Childhood Living

“It’s not like I want to, but she’s making _sad faces through email,”_ Rodney half-wailed, all of him drooping in pathetic desperation, “and she even got Madison to record her asking me and look, Sheppard, whatever you might think of me, I’m not completely made of stone!”

John didn’t think any part of Rodney was made of stone, not really, maybe a sort of porous limestone that didn’t notice as it grew heavier and heavier, instead, and watching Jeanie play him trans-galactically was actually pretty amusing. “Sure. I’ll come.”

Which was how John found himself cross-legged on cheery almost-yellow carpeting with a tow-headed angel playing quietly a few feet away. She didn’t require much supervision, Madison, who would shyly approach him to show him some of her favorite toys, then wander back to the taller-than-she-was house she was arranging dolls in so meticulously. John didn’t bother to interrupt; he knew McKay concentration when he saw it.

“... didn’t have to come, Meredith,” Jeanie’s voice floated through the open kitchen door, thoroughly exasperated.

“Yes,” Rodney bit back and wow, that was some bite, all sharp-edged teeth and bitter, silent resignation, “Jeanie, I did. You _asked_ me.”

“Oh, please, like that means—”

Whatever it meant John didn’t want to know, deliberately closing out the sound of their voices as he scooted forward to wait at the edge of Madison’s vision. She played a few moments longer then turned her head, blue eyes weighing and measuring the parts only children ever saw, before smiling shyly. “Can I help you, Uncle John?”

Totally the English Major’s influence, John thought, and then had to swallow back a snicker since he really shouldn’t be calling Kaleb _the English Major._ “Maybe I could play with you? And you know, I’m not really your uncle.”

Madison’s smile was Jeanie’s, was Rodney’s, crooked and brilliant, imbued with every molecule of concentration because when a McKay was happy, they were _happy_ , full-stop. Even if it was just for the microseconds it took to stretch lips and cheeks, crinkling the skin around their eyes—for those few breathes there was no part of them that wasn’t purely joyous.

“I know,” she told him earnestly, a trace of a giggle making her pig-tails—pig-tails! No grown man can resist little girls with pig-tails, Jeanie had to know that—tremble. “But Mummy laughs whenever I do, and Daddy says I should stop, but he’s always smiling, too, so I don’t, and besides. What else should I call you?”

“You could just call me John?” The dolls were relatively human-seeming, soft and squishy as he began carefully arranging a tea party in the kitchen.

He was _bored_ , or at least, that would make a good excuse. He found it oddly soothing to finger the plush material that made up the doll’s clothes, brushing back hair that was plastic and shiny even through touch.

Madison thought about that, slow and deliberate, then shook her head. “Nope. Gonna call you Unc’ John.”

Well, at least the too-careful mannerisms were starting to fade. He never did like party manners, whether they were his or someone else’s.

“Okay, then," he smiled, offering his hand. She shook hard, despite tiny fingers warm and fragile against his palm. "Uncle John it is.”

The fight behind them was breaking up, finally, ice-chunks floating through frigid waters, hunting for boats to capsize. John knew he was the Molly Brown of this situation, and strangely found himself at ease with being compared to a large, imperious woman who’d browbeaten everyone into doing her bidding. It was McKay-type persona, really, and John was _good_ at it, too, casually bringing up Madison’s addiction to Spongebob, something John appreciated to the depths of his five year old soul, and John’s belief that the entire expedition could be depicted in brilliant Nickelodeon colors. Or maybe he’d go more subtle, referencing the kids that glued themselves to Rodney’s side even though it was John who knew the best games and the funniest jokes.

Come to think of it, Madison was the first to ever instinctively know that.

Sighing with surprising weariness, Madison claimed John’s lap as her resting place and half-twisted around so she could continue looking at him. She had a stuffed bear in her hands, the fur worn to frayed stitches, one eye chipped into giving him a rakish, piratical look. “Uncle John, is Uncle Rodney sad? Cause I think he is, especially when Mommy looks at him. Can you make him less sad?”

Well of course he could, John wanted to say. That’s what he did, what he’d just been thinking about—except that wasn’t true. John was thinking about distractions, about smirking as he led Rodney through a maze of his own devising, tangling him up with _something else_ , even if it was just for a few precious seconds. That held its advantages, sure, but that wasn’t what Madison was asking him to do.

Not when Rodney had earned his sadness, the terrible burden of remembrance with its joys scattered like thorns underneath velvet memories. No, John wasn’t making him less sad. He was just making him _forget_.

Madison tugged at the shirt-collar, her mouth in that same unhappy line John had learned to hate. “Can you, Uncle John?”

Yeah, John wanted to say. Yeah, I can. It’s just that the only thing I can think of isn’t the kind of thing that I should be doing.

“Can Uncle John what?” Jeanie looked exhausted but smug as she lifted up her daughter, which meant that Rodney had given in—again—and allowed Jeanie to have her way. It wouldn’t be much longer before she finally realized Rodney wasn’t losing so much as giving up, and then there’d be _more_ fireworks, but until that point, it was just one more thing for Rodney to shoulder, one more sadness for him to add to his pile, his own private punishment grown to teetering heights, just waiting to crush him.

“Make him less sad,” Madison said, insistent the way only little girls could, breathy and almost lisping her seriousness.

“Make who less sad? John, what’s she—John?”

John wasn’t listening, though, too busy walking into the kitchen Rodney hid within. He could blame it on lots of things, he knew: the berried greenery tastefully decorating every bit of the Miller’s home; the eggnog Kaleb swore wasn’t pure rum; a random alignment of stars and good will towards man, peace on Earth and every other waste of a cliché.

But John didn’t want to blame it on anything, not this time.

“So, Madison thinks you're sad.” He leaned against the table, studying the flushed curve of Rodney’s forehead, the bitten lips that were flattened nearly to nothing. It wasn’t cute, or attractive, or any of the words John had ever gifted to the women in his life. It was more. “And she thinks I should do something about it.”

“Yes, well, children can be surprisingly perceptive. Don’t worry about it. Just go back to playing with her; you looked like you were actually having fun, which is beyond bizarre, but also nice to see and I'll go to a movie or... or just get out of the house. Something.”

Something that would take most of the night, probably, as close as he could come to locking himself in his labs, focused on work that didn’t need to be done that second because work was all Rodney knew. It was how he processed, how he handled things, and it was time John taught him another way.

Maybe taught himself one, too.

“Stand up. Stand up, Rodney, c’mon.” They were nearly of a height, the two of them, Rodney standing slumped and frustratedly glaring at his feet. It made it easy for John to rest his palms on the broad curve of Rodney’s shoulders, muscle thick and surprisingly tough, even as he bumped first their chins and then their noses, bringing their mouths together like touching down, landing so perfect there wasn't even a ripple to distract them.

Somehow, at some point, Johns hands migrated up to Rodney’s neck and then his face, cupping his cheeks as they found a better angle, no longer chaste, but still almost unbearably sweet. There was no hunger to the kiss, not the kind of passion John was used to, but instead something huge and fathomless just out of reach, something that hovered as their lips brushed again and again.

“What are you doing?” Rodney didn’t actually back away, didn’t even stop kissing really, whispering the words until John felt them in his toes.

“Making me feel better. I mean.” He stopped, trying to put all-important space between them, but suddenly Rodney’s hands were there, big and solid and hot through two layers of sweater, pressing into John’s skin. He wasn't going anywhere. “I meant to say making _you_ feel better.”

Rodney studied him, lashes an amber brush against their cheeks, so close he had to be seeing double and maybe that was where the answers lay, that fuzzy half-seeing that was neither eye working correctly but still somehow making a whole. “No, you didn’t,” he said, and in the wobble of his voice John heard names being whispered, friends and strangers alike, the burden both of them shouldered every day. The reasons might've been different at first, different vectors on the approach, but John knew that was semantics, nothing important. The end result was the echoing of his heart, caught in time with Rodney's flush against his.

Pulling Rodney’s face close, John said, “Yeah, I did,” because banter was what they did, counterpoint to the slick feel of Rodney’s tongue curling against his own, melting something John didn’t even know was cold, as they clutched each other and kissed and didn’t let go, not even when Madison told her mother to shhh, let Uncle John fix it.


End file.
